CSA Newsletter – 2010: Summer Week 2

Welcome to the 2nd week of CSA! It’s getting more exciting, with new veggies starting to come in. We love this time of year!

From the Fields: Rain, rain go away and come again another day! We’ve been singing that one to our little Zea as we continue to feel that rain fall. There have only been 4 days without rain in the month of June so far. While rain is loved, too much rain isn’t the best for farming. Not only is excessive rain physically difficult to work in day in and out, it also makes it very hard for us to get into our fields. This time of year we are trying to complete our planting in the field and control our weeds. It’s very hard to do this when the soil is wet. We have our entire crop of winter squash waiting to be planted in the ground. The transplants are getting too large for their transplant cells and squash beetles are finding it all too easy to beat up on the plants when they are still in the greenhouse. To be able to get these plants in the ground, we need to till the soil to give the transplants space and air to grow their roots into. However, we can’t get the tractor in the field to till while the ground is so wet. So all we can do is wait until the sun comes out long enough to dry the soil out. If it doesn’t dry out soon, our winter squash crop (acorn, butternut, delicata squashes) harvest will suffer. Our choice will be either to put in these older, stressed transplants or to start seeding all over and delay planting these, at the risk of the freeze coming before the fruits ripen. This is just one example of how all the rain can complicate things. It’s part of the stress of farming – not being able to control the weather. So do your favorite sun – dance for us and let’s get a stretch of sunny days!!!

Other News: Things are really changing at our home. As many of you may already know, we farm in Middleton, but actually live in Cross Plains. The land where we grow most of the food for the CSA is on Pioneer Road in Middleton. This land is owned by Mike’s parents, and they have been really wonderful in letting us use this land. Next year, however, we hope to transition our farm to our own property on County Road J, in Cross Plains. We will still grow some crops on the Pioneer property, but are very excited to have the majority of our crops grown on our home farm. We bought the land two years ago. First, we remodeled the late 1800s farm home to make it livable. (It had zero insulation!) We moved to the home in the early winter of 2008. Since then we’ve been saving up to finance the infrastructure needed to make our home farm the base of our business. I’m very excited to say that when I look out our windows, I can see the concrete pad, studs, and trusses, of what will be our new wash/pack shed. We are VERY excited!!! We’ll keep you posted as we inch closer to living and farming in the same location, as it is very literally your support of our business that will make it possible. Thank you for supporting our family farm!

Share News: Strawberries for everyone! We were actually able to get strawberries to all members last week, and will be able to do that for the next couple of weeks. Enjoy these treats. They aren’t as sweet as they normally are – because of the rain – but still extremely tasty nonetheless! This cooler weather we have been having is really great for our peas. We harvest 10 days earlier than we did last year. Each member will receive .9 lbs of sugar snap peas this week. These are a tasty treat to eat fresh. They are also wonderful sauteed or in stir fries, but we’ve found that they aren’t great as leftovers. So when cooking with them, remember to use only what you will eat in that sitting. Other new items this week include scallions, dill, bok choi (for REG members), and salad turnips. Salad turnips are one of our favorites. They are like a more mild, juicier radish. They are best eaten raw, but can be cooked in sautes and stir-fries as well. Our favorite spring salad is salad mix, chopped walnuts, chopped salad turnips, blue cheese, and a balsalmic dressing. We crave this all winter long. Salad turnips can only be grown at the bookends of the season, so enjoy this little treat while it’s briefly here. Another item that may be new to some of you is bok choi. This is an Asian green that is best sauteed. There are several wonderful recipes for bok choi on our website, including a new recipe we found for a fresh salad. http://www.primrosecommunityfarm.net/sitecontent/recipes-resources/recipes/